On April 27, 2020, the Prime Minister held the sixth meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy in 2020 at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, the participants held discussions on the emergency proposal and another proposal, titled “Towards the Reforms for the Future.”

Following the discussions, the Prime Minister said,

“Today, in the beginning, the expert members submitted an emergency proposal.

Last week, we compiled emergency economic measures with an unprecedented scale and substance. It is essential, above all else, that the impacts of these measures reach the public and business operators swiftly. To that end, we must review relevant schema and their implementation relevant to these measures, as outlined in the proposal, closely and swiftly from the users’ standpoint.

Based on the proposal submitted by the expert members today, I ask the relevant ministries to expeditiously conduct the necessary reviews. In particular, towards the promotion of teleworking, I request that the Council for Promotion of Regulatory Reform swiftly compile immediate measures on the review of systems and practices involving physical seals and paperwork, and that each ministry start implementing what it can in collaboration with the IT Strategic Headquarters.

Next, we held a discussion on the proposal titled ‘Towards the Reforms for the Future.’

With regard to the recent spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we must not only exert every effort to overcome the crisis with the global community but also work on this challenge to make it, in retrospect, a turning point towards transformation for the future. In particular, we have the bitter experience that, after the financial shock following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, innovation investment in Japan has stagnated compared with other countries.

While the Council on Investments for the Future is to hold discussions regarding energy from a medium- to long-term perspective, we intend to work on the promotion of investments, not only from the standpoint of stimulating demand, but also that of investing in the future, such as innovation, in particular digitization and medicine, human resource development, and investment in local communities for going digital and going green.”